LANSDALE — A $2 million upgrade plan to improve the capacity of Lansdale’s Wastewater Treatment Plant is moving ahead.

On Wednesday night, two council committees voted to move ahead with developing detailed plans and cost estimates of the upgrade plans a consulting firm described last month, a plan that WWTP Superintendent Dan Shinskie said makes sense in both the short and long term.

“I agree with their recommendation of using part of the plant that we’re currently using for storage as a treatment process, in order to process more flow every day,” Shinskie said.

“The storage is only good as long as it’s empty, when it’s full you no longer have it, while 2 million gallons of treatment (capacity added) is good today, tomorrow, and good the next day,” he said.

Shinskie and engineer Mark Strahota of Hazen and Sawyer summarized that presentation for a joint meeting of council’s Public Works and Administration and Finance committees, before each voted to recommend that council consider extending the firm’s contract to develop detailed engineering plans for their proposed upgrades.

Strahota said the upgrades to a current equalization basin would likely include adding blowers and membranes to aerate the wastewater currently stored in that plant, adding capacity there while also increasing the pipeline size between different stages of treatment. Once the plant upgrades are done, Shinskie said, the plant could be re-rated by the state Department of Environmental Protection to an increased capacity, “so we’d basically improve the asset that we have.”

Borough Utilities Director Jake Ziegler said the original storage expansion idea plan “would be a step in the right direction, but it had limited benefit as you move forward, and this gives an ongoing benefit in an ongoing treatment capacity.”

“We’re out there identifying new ways to generate additional revenue, but not just to pad the bank, to reinvest it in our current infrastructure. This is a case in point, exhibit A, of using our studies and recommendations and acting on them,” West said.

Borough Manager Timi Kirchner added that state and federal environmental protection officials have both complimented the borough on their proactive approach to upgrading the plant, as well as borough WWTP staff — particularly Shinskie — for the way they’ve kept it in shape to date.

“This exhibits that good work, in that they’ve approached this council and said ‘We really think this study should be done,’” Kirchner said.

Lansdale borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Sept. 18 at Borough Hall, 1 Vine St.; for more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.

Follow staff writer Dan Sokil on Twitter @DanSokil.

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